BBC News
IDS case study
BBC News has moved from Bush House to the newly extended and refurbished Broadcasting House.
During this restructure, the corporation took the opportunity to install an entirely new and flexible infrastructure. IPE Systems Ltd won the major competitive tender to design, supply and install equipment for all the radio studios within the Broadcasting House campus, including IDS as the control and display system within the studios. Subsequently, IDS has been adopted for TV facilities and Central Areas to provide additional displays. We have since installed in the region of 800 attached devices.
The Brief
At Bush House and Television Centre the display infrastructure had grown in to a cumbersome mixture of digital and analogue equipment housed in large wooden boxes. The BBC News technical team's key requirement for Radio 4, Radio 1, Radio 1 Newsbeat, Asian Network and World Service English News was for a digital display system that could replicate existing functionality within the studios - such as NTP-controlled clocks, cue lights, wall and table lights and mic live lights - but be managed and controlled in a more streamlined and efficient way.
The solution
We installed an integrated networked IDS system that included some of our newest technology, based on intuitive touchscreens designed to give presenters and producers easier control over more display elements.
The News team works in general purpose set-ups, with a studio for presenters and a separate adjoining cubicle for engineers and producers. Each studio has four IDS Touchscreens and four IDS Lamps on the desk, plus three rack-mounted IDS display monitors showing time displays and various cues, and a noise level warning indicator. There is also an IDS SQ-IRQ infrared controller which allows the four wall-mounted ringmain TVs to be controlled individually via a touchscreen.
Each corresponding cubicle features touchscreens, wall displays with infrared controls and an IDS SQ-NLM noise level monitor. The touchscreens also interface with and display real-time information from the Studer mixing desks via an IDS SQ-DTC . Flashing IDS Lamps in the cubicle notify staff when telephones or ISDNs are ringing.
The IDS system also interfaces with the BBC's VCS library system, displaying information about the chosen track or clip, such as total duration or when it will finish.
The IDS system proved so useful that it was quickly introduced to production areas where it displays clocks from relevant time zones, headline RSS feeds, web pages and notification of when clips have been fed into the system - all controllable from one place!
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